kayl parker

this piece was, in a round about way, inspired by the documentary deep water about a sailing race around the world and the fate of donald crowhurst. a sentence that caught my attention was that reporters referred to him as “a weekend sailor,” meaning, of course, that he did not belong in a serious sailing competition.

i started building off of that, trying to find a word that fit with his personality at sea. i settled on the idea of an estuary, a body of water that neither belongs inland or at sea, just as crowhurst was displaced. estuary, brackish; i began to try and create imagery that would act as a definition for these two words. what i came up with is this edition of 25 screen prints with acrylic hand-painted areas.

for those of you in the chicago area, i’m selling them for $10. for anyone else, $20. let me know via e-mail if you’re interested: kparke4@saic.edu; there are twenty-three left in the edition.

two reasons why i love stacey rozich: 1. her illustrations contain spectacularly detailed monsters performing seemingly normal monster tasks with eye-catching colors and beautiful style, 2. she clearly states on her blog that she likes cats.

cody brought these illustrations to my attention; who couldn’t be immediately drawn to the macabre acts her creations are performing. they are constructed in such a way that invokes humor, and, if you’re anything like me, you think these animals are cute. it’s hard to comment on the amount of detail that is involved in each picture. each piece remains completely unique and separate on its own, but all the works function as a portfolio of sorts, rozich’s body of work.

rozich even presents us with creatures that already exist in our reality, but obscures them in such a way that causes us to think twice about what we are looking at, propelling us in to the monster world she has created for herself and her viewers. not only does she include real animals, she also dresses the monsters in human garb, though the type of clothing they wear suggests tribal influence. we are forced to view these creatures as sophisticated beings, with some sort of community and purpose.

there are very few humans within rozich’s work that are showing their bare faces, and in every instance they appear, the monsters appear in a sort of submissive state, either being hunted by humans or being talked to. these inclusions cause us to further question the existence of her monsters.

the world created for us to view is a type of barbaric other-world, containing giant foreign monsters, ruthless humans (usually females), and beautiful animals. it is hard for me to label her works as morbid, when they are so easy to look at, but they are nothing short of a macabre take on a fantasy world, such as the ones we create for our own selves. maybe that’s why so many are drawn to rozich’s illustrations, because we all have seen these monsters hiding in our closets and sleeping under our beds.

kp

obviously this semester i have been focusing extensively on dwelling places. in print, however, i have been focuses on my living spaces in particular. i originally had the idea to track the roofs of the buildings i’ve lived in in chicago already, but after sketching them out, i ended up not liking the shapes they created. instead, i moved on to the rooms i dwell in. ideally, this is an ongoing series that i can expand on, ending with a collection of print series that document all of my favorite living spaces (both past and present). this project focused on my living space now (depicting both the living room, which is the largest area, and my room, including closets and windows). by eliminating all traces of what makes this place my room, i had the ability to turn the shape into an abstract form and invoke different feelings for each print. each print is a screen print, done with one screen and hand stenciling. after printing a block of color for each paper, i began mono-printing over top these with water colors. though it was a time consuming process (requiring a lot of patience and waiting), i am very excited with the final outcome and cannot wait to begin working on more rooms.

separation a, edition 1/1, 33x40in

this print (and the print below) were influenced greatly by julia fish’s works on paper. i began to think about bringing part of the space back into the shape, both abstractly and literally. in my apartment now, the living room has wood flooring and the bedrooms have a white/beige carpet. one top of my one color blocks, i watercolored each plank separately (the process for the one above took a little over two hours, while the one below only forty-five minutes). there was a third print (which looks like a hybrid of the literal print and the abstract one), but the registration was slightly off (that print took one and a half hours to paint; this is where the patience came in).

separation b, 2010, edition 1/1, 18x24in

my room as a mirror at night, 2010, edition 1/1, 18x24in

the above print was another way of incorporating constellations into my piece, making the night sky the only metanarrative i carried throughout the semester in print. i also thought it was interesting to romanticize the geometric shapes; the night sky can now be confined within the boxes of my room.

my room at dusk (facing west), 2010, edition 1/1, 22x30in

this print was an experimentation on quicker mono-printing process. by using the rainbow roll to create an abstract landscape, i was able to further romanticize the idea of confining illusory images into a confined shape.

inspiration: julia fish//

kp

i didn’t go outside, that’s for sure. it was so cool inside that i couldn’t resist lounging around all day with my current read (a non-fiction about grand duchess anastasia by peter kurth). i also got around to some embroidery (i’ve begun outlining the buildings in black yarn, starting at the river and going south, today i managed to do twelve), and watercolors (i’ve been wanting to incorporate space into my watercolors, so i decided to let it out).

little soldier 1, 2010, kayl parker, watercolor on paper

little soldier 2, 2010, kayl parker, watercolor on paper

interested? kp